How leadership emotional intelligence promotes team innovation: parallel mediating roles of psychological safety and knowledge sharing

This study examines how leadership emotional intelligence drives team innovation through two distinct mechanisms. Using multilevel structural equation modeling with data from 65 leaders and 391 team members, we reveal that emotionally intelligent leaders influence innovation through both psychological security and knowledge sharing, though with markedly different strengths. Psychological security-the sense that team members can voice ideas without fear-emerges as the primary mechanism, substantially outweighing the effect of knowledge sharing. This dual-pathway mechanism suggests that leadership emotional intelligence operates by first establishing an affective foundation of safety, within which cognitive and behavioral engagement in innovation naturally unfolds. Our findings demonstrate that the relationship between leadership emotional intelligence and team innovation is not straightforward but works through layered mechanisms that vary in their relative importance. This distinction challenges the common assumption that all mediating pathways carry equal weight and highlights why emotionally intelligent leaders are particularly effective: they create the psychological conditions that make team members willing to contribute ideas and take innovative risks. The research contributes to understanding leadership influence on team performance and provides insight into which leadership capabilities matter most for fostering innovation.